Philip Seymour Hoffman is A Most Wanted Man

FilmNation Entertainment has announced that Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote, The Ides of March) is in final negotiations to topline the modern day thriller A Most Wanted Man, for acclaimed director Anton Corbijn (The American, Control). Andrew Bovell (Edge of Darkness, Lantana) adapted the screenplay from the best-seller by master spy novelist John le Carré. Gail Egan and Andrea Calderwood under their Potboiler Productions banner, Stephen and Simon Cornwell under Ink Factory and Malte Grunert under Amusement Park Film will be producing. Film4s Tessa Ross will be executive producing.

Producer Gail Egan said, We are completely thrilled at the prospect of Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Bachmann in Andrew Bovell’s brilliant adaptation of this very modern thriller by John le Carré. We will start shooting in Hamburg in September and are delighted to be working with Anton Corbijn on this film. His unique vision for le Carré’s complex and stylish story is very contemporary, very real, very human.”

A Most Wanted Man takes place in present day Hamburg, Germany where a mysterious, tortured and near-dead half-Chechen, half-Russian man on the run arrives in the city’s Islamic community desperate for help and looking to recover his late Russian father’s ill-gotten fortune. Nothing about this young man seems to add up; is he a victim or a thief or, worse still, an extremist intent on destruction? Drawn into this web of intrigue is a private British banker and a young female lawyer determined to defend the defenseless. All the while, they are being watched by the brilliant, roguish chief of a covert German spy unit (Hoffman), who fights to put the pieces together as the clock ticks.

Glen Basner, CEO of FilmNation Entertainment said: “‘A Most Wanted Man’ is another masterpiece tale of intrigue and mystery from le Carré, and given Antons previous successes we are confident that this movie will become the next highly-anticipated thriller.”